An Unmarried Woman merited enough respect in 1978 to earn three
Oscar nominations, including the Big Kahuna - Best Picture. Although
on the surface it is a predictable chick-flick which chronicles one
woman's odyssey from happy dependence to abandonment to emerging independence, it
managed to transcend that surface because of two major elements:

1. It managed to tell an interesting story about
real people saying real things in real situations. That may not sound
so impressive on the surface, but think about it. Very few films
manage to stay completely anchored in reality. The writers are sorely
tempted by the sirens of profitability, who serenade them with the
songs of easy acceptance, tempting them to add zany dialogue, dramatic
explosions, ludicrous plot twists, and cartoon characterizations. Name
one film where everything that happens is believable. Not easy, is it?
Now name one film which is both credible and interesting. Virtually
impossible. So many people who write about the movies, including me,
profess to long for a film completely grounded in reality, only to
whine about how boring it is when somebody hands it to us. An
Unmarried Woman manages to stay within the known universe without
losing our interest except for some short stretches. That alone is pretty impressive.

2. It managed to tap into the seventies
"important issues" zeitgeist. The challenges faced by the female protagonist reflected the
struggles and concerns of the feminists of that era. Unexpectedly
dumped by her husband from what seems like an idyllic marriage, she
experiences the horrors of dating, and the uncomfortable process of
becoming intimate with strangers. She adapts her traditional thinking
to the then-new philosophies about sex and romance. When she finally meets Mr. Right,
she refuses to change her life to follow him, thus declaring that she
simply doesn't need a man to complete her. As The New Yorker's Pauline
Kael wrote in her 1978 review: "He (scriptwriter Paul Mazursky)
touches so many women's-liberation bases that you begin to feel as if
you'd been passing out leaflets for McGovern."

In addition to those two major positives, the film delivered
(and still delivers) a few other minor pleasures
along the way. It reminds us of how charming and charismatic Alan
Bates was in the prime of his career. It also delivers some
surprisingly funny dialogue. Because the story is told through the
spurned woman's eyes, it follows her to her lunches with the girls,
where the women - liberated from the stifling effect of male egos -
raise their consciousness by carrying on raunchy, candid, and totally uninhibited discussions of their
sex lives.

Of course, the film will never be as good
again as it was in the seventies, because it required both of the
elements numbered above to elevate it to the status of a Best Picture nominee. Looking at it today, the woman's journey still seems to be
told truthfully, but that trip now produces a shrug of the shoulders
instead of a clenched fist and a hearty "right on, sister." The ideas
that seemed fresh in 1978 don't seem wrong today, but they do seem
trite and obvious, and we just can't muster up all that much sympathy
for a beautiful woman living in a gorgeous Manhattan apartment, given
that virtually every other woman in the world would willingly exchange
places with her, man or no man. Devoid of its emotional context, the film is now
stripped of one of the two major elements which made it seem important in
1978. Oh, it still plays out all right. It is still interesting for us guys
to eavesdrop on the luncheon conversations, and the overall story
still works because it is true and honest, but An Unmarried Woman now
leaves us wondering how this solid but unremarkable film could ever
have been considered one of the five best in any year.

It's all in the context, lads. 1978 was its
time.

DVD INFO

The widescreen transfer is anamorphically
enhanced (16x9)

There is a full length
commentary from director Mazursky and actress Clayburgh

The meaning of the IMDb
score: 7.5 usually indicates a level of
excellence equivalent to about three and a half stars
from the critics. 6.0 usually indicates lukewarm
watchability, comparable to approximately two and a half stars
from the critics. The fives are generally not
worthwhile unless they are really your kind of
material, equivalent to about a two star rating from the critics,
or a C- from our system.
Films rated below five are generally awful even if you
like that kind of film - this score is roughly equivalent to one
and a half stars from the critics or a D on our scale. (Possibly even less,
depending on just how far below five the rating
is.

My own
guideline: A means the movie is so good it
will appeal to you even if you hate the genre. B means the movie is not
good enough to win you over if you hate the
genre, but is good enough to do so if you have an
open mind about this type of film. C means it will only
appeal to genre addicts, and has no crossover
appeal. (C+ means it has no crossover appeal, but
will be considered excellent by genre fans, while
C- indicates that it we found it to
be a poor movie although genre addicts find it watchable). D means you'll hate it even if you
like the genre. E means that you'll hate it even if
you love the genre. F means that the film is not only
unappealing across-the-board, but technically
inept as well. Any film rated C- or better is recommended for
fans of that type of film. Any film rated B- or better is
recommended for just about anyone. We don't score films below C-
that often, because we like movies and we think that most of
them have at least a solid niche audience. Now that you know
that, you should have serious reservations about any movie below
C-.

Based on this description, it's
a C. Although it doesn't live up to
the expectations one might have of a Best Picture nominee, it's
still solid and honest.